The Last Dance: Tragedy of a Dancing Queen - Khalid Mohamed narrates the rise and fall of the iconic Cuckoo Moray, who mentored Helen but died in abject penury, and is at most considered a footnote in the Hindi cinema of yore.

Whenever the living legend Helen is quizzed about her – call it passport or mentorship – to the realm of the Bombay film world, she does vehemently acknowledge her incalculable debt to Cuckoo Moray, the first ‘Dancing Queen’ aka the ‘Rubber Girl’ for her flexible body moves.

Beyond that Helen (nee Richardson), as at The Kapil Sharma Show or TV reality appearances, has occasionally elaborated but cursorily on how or when the Queen turned her overnight into a Princess of Movie Cabarets during the 1940s and ‘50s.

Not that Cuckoo (1928–1981) was as athletic or all-over-the-place like today’s Malaika Arora or Nora Fatehi, to cite two examples; rather it was Cuckoo’s grace in hand movements, seductive facial expressions and balletic precision – quite often performed around a grand piano devoid of a pianist -- that had transformed the young Anglo-Indian girl into the most-wanted inimitable dancer, without ever replicating Hollywood’s ace prototypes Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse, Debbie Reynolds or even the androgynous Marlene Dietrich garbed in mannish outfits.

Fame, Excess and Decline

And it’s not only Helen, but practically today every old-timer has zipped up, either out of apathy or lack of knowledge, at most saluting the artistry of Cuckoo, which amounts to little more than a left-handed compliment.

As a kid of about 10 or 11, I had accidentally seen Cuckoo bargaining for vegetables at the Bhaji Gully of Nana Chowk. Being one of those curious sorts, I’d said hello and asked her if she was Cuckoo. Dressed shabbily in a perhaps unwashed-for-days neck-to-toe florist skirt, she nodded curtly and fled from the spot before other shoppers gathered around her.

A clear case, then, of a woman, past her glory days, who wanted to be left alone to her fate -- or to a terminal illness, for which she couldn’t afford painkillers and was too self-proud to ask or accept hand-outs. I’m sure the filmmakers whose works she had enhanced, like Raj Kapoor or Mehboob Khan (or in his absence the studio tycoon’s family), would have helped, but then that’s just an ideal conjecture on my part.

From Stardom to Ruin

In the event, it’s primarily from the online factoids by researchers and historians of Hindi cinema on the cusp and then on the attainment of the nation’s Independence, it can be verified that Cuckoo, at the peak of her popularity, had lived beyond her means in a Khar bungalow and when she was stone broke moved to a cramped tenement in a Juhu by-lane.

A singleton, she is lored to have possessed 8,000 dresses, 5,000 shoes and three cars, one for her exclusive use and the others for her dogs for an evening drive. Her protégé Helen, a migrant from Burma, would often be summoned to play with her sisters.

Eventually, as Helen became the fresher alternative for the movie producers – almost as if in a replay of the story of the Bette Davis movie All About Eve, in which her younger understudy portrayed by Anne Baxter dethrones her from theatre stardom – Cuckoo was left out in the cold.

Seemingly she had commanded the princely sum then of Rs 6,000 for a dance appearance, and had splurged on buying apartments and jewellery. Catch: she had evaded paying income tax brashly and was declared bankrupt. In this context, Helen has stated, “She never thought of security, or tomorrow. But what a tremendous lady she was! There wasn’t even a tear in her eye, even when the roles stopped when the money disappeared. Instead she’d joke about her plight. Some actors did help but it was too late, much too late.” This has more than coincidental resemblances to the riches-to-rags story of the Albela-famed Bhagwan Dada.

The Films That Made Her

To rewind at this point, Cuckoo Moray had made her debut in Bombay Talkies’ Mujrim (1944) and in the B-grader Arab Ka Sitara (1946), her major breakthrough coming with Mehboob Khan’s Anokhi Ada (1948) and Andaz (1949), a memorable dance executed by her in the cult triangular love story featuring Nargis, Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor. In Khan’s 1952 first colour adventure drama Aan, she appeared in an all-too-brief dance cameo. Incidentally, she was to feature in just one more colour film, Mayurpankh, during her estimable career.

Meanwhile, she had snagged two assignments for Helen, aged 13 then, in Shabistan and Raj Kapoor’s Awara. She had also canvassed for the struggling actor Pran to appear in Ziddi, kick-starting his long innings as the prime villain, an essential ingredient in the plot artifices for decades.

Two of her most memorable dances are considered to be Ek Do Teen in Raj Kapoor’s Awara (1951) and Patli Kamar Hai alongside Premnath in Barsaat (1949). Although Shamshad Begum would be her usual playback voice, she sang Neele Aasmani herself in Guru Dutt’s Mr. and Mrs. 55 (1955).

Top of form, Cuckoo and her protégé Helen featured together in the dance interludes of Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958) and in song-and-dance sequences together in Yahudi (1958). Cuckoo’s final curtain call was in the Sunil Dutt dacoit drama Mujhe Jeene Do (1963). And then The Lady Vanishes, to borrow a title from an Alfred Hitchcock mystery.

Surrendering herself to self-imposed isolation, she battled terminal cancer, dying at the Tata Memorial Hospital at the age of 52 or 53 --- accounts differ --- on 30 September 1981, unattended except for a down-at-heel film broker, and swiftly forgotten.

Nadira’s Reflection on Stardom and Survival

To add, Nadira (born Florence Lawrence), who had been introduced by Mehboob Khan in Aan and was subsequently typed in vampish roles, told me in the course of a conversation circa 1985 at a roomy but drab apartment at the heel of Pedder Road, “Imagine, once I used to possess a Rolls-Royce no less. Let me tell you there have been countless tragedies which remain untold. Unlike Cuckoo, I have somehow managed to retain this house, thanks to the kindness of strangers. The landlord seems to have some regard for an out-of-work so-called star, and even pays for my dental fees. Motilal had always been fond of me and we had even featured as leads in Chhoti Chhoti Battein (1965), which he had produced. In black-and-white, in the colour era, the film failed miserably, a failure which neither he nor I could come to terms with.”

She added, “So, here I am, wasted and unwanted. Whenever I’m invited to lunches and dinners by my fans – including a former royal family living in Worli -- I welcome them. They send a car to pick me up and I eat to my heart’s content. I have no shame, so I accept the landlord’s generosity and such free meals with gratitude. But neither Meena Kumari nor Cuckoo were ready to become ‘mohtaj’ on anyone. I can only admire them for holding on to their self-esteem till their last breath.”

Incidentally Nadira passed away in Mumbai on February 9, 2006, at the age of 73 following a heart attack and stroke.

A Forgotten Cautionary Tale

I’ve brought up Cuckoo’s cautionary tale – which Gen Z doesn’t have a clue about – to simply emphasise that Mumbai’s film establishment may no longer care about the vicissitudes which are attached with stardom. Hence, one can only flash back that the fall of grace, when it comes, was once followed by an end of no return.

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